The Bureau of Land Management auctioned off 14 oil and gas leases in Colorado on Tuesday, as the Trump administration aims to ramp up oil and gas production on public lands.
The land – dotted across Moffat, Rio Blanco, Weld and Arapahoe counties – totaled 7,895 acres, while the auction generated more than $6.7 million in revenue for Colorado and the federal government.
Some parcels leased for as little as $10 an acre, plus fees; while a parcel on a landfill in Arapahoe County leased for more than $5,000 an acre, generating the majority of the revenue from the sale.
That parcel is part of the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan, a proposed oil and gas development by a subsidiary of Civitas, a Denver-based oil giant. The plan proposes more than 150 new oil and gas wells near the Aurora Reservoir and a federal toxic Superfund site, and has drawn fierce opposition from local residents.
The BLM oversees more than 8.3 million acres of land in Colorado, mostly on the Western Slope. The agency also manages more than 27 million acres of federal mineral estate in the state – basically, areas underground that can be leased for mining, drilling and other energy development.
Lease sales have been offered for decades, but the amount of acres offered for development spiked during the first Trump administration.
Colorado had more than 2,800 oil and gas leases in effect as of October 1, 2024, which added up to more than 2 million acres, according to federal data.
But zero leases were issued in the state during the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
New rules, but not all land may actually be developed
Tuesday’s sale comes after a flurry of executive orders and revised regulations meant to increase drilling on public lands.
In July, President Trump signed the H.R.1, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which changed several regulations for lease sales. Those include:
- Cutting the “royalty rate” by about 25%, which determines how much producers are required to pay taxpayers once oil and gas starts flowing.
- Restarting “non-competitive leasing,” which means that companies can purchase leases that no one else has bid on.
- Requiring quarterly lease sales for the next decade across the West, including Colorado
- Fast-tracking how quickly land is offered up for leasing
- Limiting how the agency can evaluate leases for impacts to the environment or cultural sites.
Community and watchdog groups say these changes may hurt rural communities and lead to oil and gas development in areas with sensitive wildlife or public health concerns
Western Colorado Alliance, an organization that advocates for Western Slope communities, is opposed to expanding lease sales while rolling back public health and environmental regulations.
Emily Hornback, the group’s executive director, also said the decreased royalty rate deprives rural communities of much-needed revenue. “It’s literally taking money away from rural communities,” Hornback said.
Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan budget group, estimated that Colorado and U.S. taxpayers would lose around $15.5 million in revenue from Tuesday’s sale because of the lower royalty rate for those leases.
The revised royalty rate is now the same as it was from 1920 to 2022.
“Fifteen-point-five million is a lot of money over time, and then we just think about what that could do for our communities, and our infrastructure and our education, our schools,” Hornback added.
Owning a lease is no guarantee that wells will actually be built. Companies have 10 years to start producing oil and gas. Otherwise, their leases expire.
But if a firm does apply for a permit to drill, and fossil fuels start flowing profitably, they can hold the lease indefinitely.
The BLM will hold another auction for 61 leases in Colorado, totalling more than 50,000 acres, in December.
